WAI EOWG Meeting, notes
August 13, 1999
Scribe: Chuck Letourneau
ATTENDEES:
HB - Harvey Bingham
HJ Helle BjarnÃ
JB Judy Brewer
GF - Geoff Freed,
CL - Chuck Letourneau
CMN - Charles McCathieNevile
SS Sheela Sethuraman
BS - Bill Shackleton
JT - Jeffrey Turner
RN - Rob Neff (late)
AGENDA:
1. Action Item updates?
JB: Judy has still not done some of her action items yet... too busy. Has
not followed up.
2. Outreach updates?
CL: Will be addressing the GoC Advisory Committee of Information Management
(senior bureaucrats) on September 7. Also co-presenting on accessible web
design and the GoC Common Look and Feel initiative to the Council of Federal
Libraries "Systems and Networks Committee" on September 8. Also speaking on
accessible page design at Government on the Net'99 conference in Ottawa,
November 22, 1999.
JB: any update on GoC policy yet?
CL: A new
HB: are there any problems with bilingual sites.
HJ: question: when will literature stuffers to be sent out.
JB: has not been sent for reprinting. When do you need it?
HJ: September 7. Actually needed by September 3.
JB: will probably make that.
CPL: For MF Laughton: Ask about status of information kits? Are there any
left?
No reply from two e-mails (one to Judy and one to Janet) -
JB: these were a one-time printing for the conference. MF can print the same
documents from the Web. Kit included the Guidelines, checklist, press release,
testimony, FAQ and quicktip cards.
CL: then can we get some of the W3C folders.
JB: if doing a hard copy print of the guidelines or checklist, use the PDF or
postscript version for best printing results.
HJ: could use about 100 of the old literature stuffers.
JB: if she has them, she will send them (note they are on heavy stock so it
would cost a lot to ship… would prefer to wait)
BS: developing an introduction document for senior bureaucrats in the GoC on
general accessibility, in which web accessibility is a strong component.
JB: can we see it?
BS: not at this time… contract regulations prohibit it, but maybe later.
3. New version of WAI Overview curriculum:
JB: <http://www.w3.org/Talks/WAI-Intro>
- previous version was at <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/0401-wai-jb>
- many changes, most things fixed that got comments
- a few things not yet fixed -- a few of the page set-up and navigation arrow
changes will be done shortly
- not everything is linked yet
- some slides were broken up, but then new material added, so very overloaded
again, so will need to break up several slides again.
- previous discussion on this was
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/1999/0402-EOWG-min.html>
JB: has anyone had a chance to look at the new WAI curriculum
CL: I have.
SS: has started.
HB: doesn't think a duplicate set of navigation arrows at the bottom are
useful
since the mouse pointer doesn't sit naturally on the set.
There was some discussion of features (most of which I missed because of
technical difficulties). Most of the discussion was about the iconic arrows
for moving backwards and forwards and up to the "index" page.
JB: do people have any suggestions
CMN: has a version of Slidemaker that puts navigation at the bottom as well.
CMN: access key was put into the slides.
SS: alt-right works sometimes but not all the time.
SS: the change-style button is confusing.
JT: confused by our discussion, since he is using a screen reader and we are
discussing the visual look of the page.
CMN: the title is too long.
CL: the Slidemaker takes the title from the H1 of the slide to automatically
generate.
JB: what do we want the alt or title to say?
HJ: make the alt and title the same so that all users see the same.
SS: have the title for the next arrow say "Go to"
HB: but you "go to" in either direction.
JB: what about "go to next/previous - title?
SS, CL - how about just Next / Previous (or Prior)
JB: lets go with Next / Previous
JB: any other comments on navigation/slide design? No, lets stop and go to
content.
JB: A comment said that on some slides, one or two more words would actually
turn the bullets into sentences. She likes slides that "talk to you" rather
than have terse little bullets. She tried to make it "friendlier" and make
the
links more informative. She now has to break up some of the longer slides and
do some more clean up.
RN: are we going to list the barriers to give people an idea.
JB: if you look at the 3rd slide, that talks about barriers, and if that isn't
enough, then Rob should explain what more is needed.
RN: will be giving a presentation to IBM at their Share conference and he will
look at using this presentation.
JB: this is for public use.
JT: could use something at the top about this presentation. Non visual users
would not know that this is "slides". There is nothing textually that tells
him
that what appears on the table of contents are "slides".
JB: Slidemaker is problematic since it only works on-line: printing out
transparencies doesn't really work.
CL: one problem is the name: Slidemaker… it doesn't really make slides. Maybe
"presentation maker"
JT: even if there were some indication that a special tool was used to create
the presentation, it might be helpful.
SS: online presentation tool.
GF: Sheela's idea is a good compromise. While we can project them
BS: what about "WebSlides"
JB: like that!
JB: we can build more and more links as reference/support material becomes
available.
JT: likes the format now that he is becoming familiar with it. Likes being
able to cycle through the content.
JB: the first slide that is too long is 5 of 19. Thinks that there is some
justification for "thematic continuity". Or should it be broken down.
CL: same page
HB: split it (single page display only)
SS: happy scrolling
CMN: happy scrolling
JT: no problem scrolling
GF: no problem scrolling.
HJ: happy with scrolling.
JB: therefore will try to reduce the amount of text, but won't worry about a
bit of scrolling.
HB: hates having to scroll in a presentation.
BS: if bullet phrases used, scrolling not necessary, but if full text
dialog is
there, it lends itself to scrolling.
JB: maybe a need to have a separate tool that makes transparency type
presentations.
JB: we need an alternative that can generate relative font sizes.
CMN: or another slide that has no style.
SS: better to use relative font sizes.
JB: a smaller set and a relative font size set.
JB: do people like the approach for the last slide?
RN: doesn't see anything about what "non-W3C technologies" are. Would that be
appropriate here?
JB: not really appropriate for "getting started" page.
CMN: would prefer to make it more obvious.
RN: in making a website accessible you have to use technologies that are
compliant with W3C technologies, and people don't understand the concepts of
compliance.
JB: on number 9, where it says Learn about W3C technologies and have some kind
of link to what about accessibility concerns about non-W3C technologies.
CMN/RN: like problems with PDF, Macromedia, etc.
JB: but you don't say there are problems with things in an overview.
BS: we should lean towards the positive side, and not alienate people like
Adobe in public W3C documents.
JB: will take this under consideration.
JB: any other comments on the last page?
RN: could we get Department of Justice to do something similar (Or other
countries) to explain things?
JB: would like to get the changes made and publicly available by next week, so
any further comments on-line would be welcome.
4. Slidemaker tool now publicly available, as requested, at:
http://www.w3.org/Talks/slidemaker/YYMMsub/
5. Update on review groups discussion
JB: an initial planning meeting with Dominic Berger and someone else. Next
meeting on Monday August 23 (10:00AM-12:00 noon Eastern time).
CL: haven't had a meeting with the Access Working Group of the Canadian
Treasury Board yet, and I haven't had a chance to read the Sophia minutes yet
to see what it's all about.
HB: would like to attend
CL: may have a conflict, but will otherwise try to attend.
6. Confirming upcoming schedule of meetings
Next meeting : August 27, 1999, 8:30 - 10:00 AM Eastern Time.
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Starling Access Services
"Access A World Of Possibility"
e-mail: info@starlingweb.com
URL: http://www.starlingweb.com
Phone: 613-820-2272 FAX: 613-820-6983
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Judy Brewer jbrewer@w3.org +1.617.258.9741 http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA